Behringer Analog Synth

[dr13317]

I have never followed a thread as closely on Gear Slutz as the Behringer synth thread and I must say I am impressed by the amount of screwed logics, contra-intuitive thinking and just completely uncontrolled associations. At some point a few were close to sure it would have motorized sliders, another deduces from it's four effects sections that it must be 4 part multitimbral, yet another suggests that it's 4000 components are worth 1€ each, why the costs will be 4000€....and a lot of other wierd suggestions. I actually thought we at KVR were the masters of absolute bullshit, but we don't come anywhere near this. What a party they are having

One thing is for sure: Whatfuckingever they are smoking over there - I want some!

I don't see anyone who is sure, that the synth will have motorized faders. There is only a lot of discussion,
if it makes sense for a synth to have them. In my opinion: yes, it would be the best solution to restore patches.
It is fast and you don't need too many LED-Light for displaying values (like the Roland AIRA-Devices). These
faders are very common on mixing-consoles but some old synth-folks generally don't like new ideas. They
want their seventies back.

But I think it is not very probable, that this synth will have them.

[Anjey_Olaf]

then again DCOs could be programmed to behave the same way.

Perverse. You implement DCO's, to make them more pitch stable, and then program them to have more drift.

Avtually there is a difference between oscilator being totally out of tune which could happen with VCOs especially if they are not warmed up and slight drifting while playing with them. Even with slight drifting overall the Oscs could still in tune.

The last VCO synth i had was a Moog Slim Phatty and it took around 20 minutes until the pitch was stable. It also had an autotune feature that could be switched on just for a short time or permanently. One kind of DCOs (there seem to be multiple types) could be having a VCO with permanent autotune.
Actually one definition of a DCO is having a VCO that permamently receives control voltages via a digital-analog converter (created by a CPU etc.). It seems to work like that in the Pulse 2 for example.
A VCO that always keeps a proper pitch (besides small amounts of drifting maybe) without digital controls AFAFIK must use some kind of temperature stabilization as the temperature is the most important factor for VCOs staying in tune. This is an article about temperature compensated VCOs:
http://www.oldcrows.net/~patchell/synthmodules/vco.html

FWIW a fully digital oscillator seems to be called NCO = numerically controlled oscillator. Those seem to be used in e.g. the Modal synths like e.g. Modal 001 and 002. At least Modal calls them NCOs themselves.
I am not really sure how far a NCO is different from using a DSP chip or if those are comparable.

Wikipedia articles about DCOs and NCOs:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Digitally ... oscillator
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Numerical ... oscillator


At the moment i got 2 synths taht use DCOs (Waldorf Pulse 2 and Novation Bass Station II) and 2 taht are hybrid wit hanalog filters and VCAs (Korg DW-8000, Ensoniq ESQ-1).
I had opened the Pulse 2 and you could see a fully analog signal path with discrete circuits, including parts for the Oscs and the Noise source. The Oscs (and other parts of the synth) seem to receive control voltages created by a DA converter built-in wth the CPU (which should also include the modulation sources that are not analog as far as i could see). It is possible to see circuits (including labels at the board for some of them) for the Oscs, Noise, the analog multimode filter, the VCA and the analog Drive. Besids using a few standard transistor arrays for the filter there are no pre-built filter chips like e.g. the CEM or SSM ones.

I have always been interested in the question. As in modern VCO synthesizers, digitally controlled via MIDI realized VCO control? In any case, such as DSI OB-6 manages its VCO through a voltage generated on the DA through the processor is not it? Then it DCO! As a fully analog circuit generating a control voltage in modern synthesizers with MIDI simply does not exist! And then what DCO? Here are references on Wikipedia «The term "digitally controlled oscillator" has been used to describe the combination of a voltage-controlled oscillator driven by a control signal from a digital-to-analog converter». I understand that all analogue synthesizers such as DSI or Minilogue are DCO !!

[Ingonator]

Having MIDi control and an oscillator with stable pitch seem to be differnt things while some of te purist seem to say having both MIDI and patch memory is like no longer having a fully analog synth.
For those extreme purists only having a synth with VCOs (maybe even without temperature compensation), VCF, VCA, analog modulation sources (envelopes + LFOs), no MIDi, no USB and no patch memory is a real analog synth...

As i tried to point out above having a VCO with a stable pitch seems to require having a constant temperature and some tempartaure control/compensation is necessary for that. A VCO operated at too low or too high temperature /while too low should be the normal case) will be out of tune and much more than just a subtile drifting...

I am currently palying with a Novation Bass Station II that IMO sound really fat and really anlog for sure. Anyway besides an analog multimode filter (7 modes), a VCA and an analog Distortion it has DCOs (no idea in which way they are implemented), patch memory, MIDI and USB MIDI and i guess modulation sources are digital too (while i am not sure) so for the extreme purists it somehow is a digital synth.

[Uncle E]

I have always been interested in the question. As in modern VCO synthesizers, digitally controlled via MIDI realized VCO control? In any case, such as DSI OB-6 manages its VCO through a voltage generated on the DA through the processor is not it? Then it DCO! As a fully analog circuit generating a control voltage in modern synthesizers with MIDI simply does not exist! And then what DCO? Here are references on Wikipedia «The term "digitally controlled oscillator" has been used to describe the combination of a voltage-controlled oscillator driven by a control signal from a digital-to-analog converter». I understand that all analogue synthesizers such as DSI or Minilogue are DCO !!

Sorry, I'm not following. The function of a control signal for a DCO is different from MIDI.

With that said, I do agree that not all VCO's are equal.

[Anjey_Olaf]

Having MIDi control and an oscillator with stable pitch seem to be differnt things while some of te purist seem to say having both MIDI and patch memory is like no longer having a fully analog synth.
For those extreme purists only having a synth with VCOs (maybe even without temperature compensation), VCF, VCA, analog modulation sources (envelopes + LFOs), no MIDi, no USB and no patch memory is a real analog synth...

As i tried to point out above having a VCO with a stable pitch seems to require having a constant temperature and some tempartaure control/compensation is necessary for that. A VCO operated at too low or too high temperature /while too low should be the normal case) will be out of tune and much more than just a subtile drifting...

I am currently palying with a Novation Bass Station II that IMO sound really fat and really anlog for sure. Anyway besides an analog multimode filter (7 modes), a VCA and an analog Distortion it has DCOs (no idea in which way they are implemented), patch memory, MIDI and USB MIDI and i guess modulation sources are digital too (while i am not sure) so for the extreme purists it somehow is a digital synth.

I understand all the modern synthesizers such as Minilogue DSI or all your VCO is controlled by DA (digital generation of the control voltage). If to trust Wikipedia, the terminology it has DCO.

[Ingonator]

I understand all the modern synthesizers such as Minilogue DSI or all your VCO is controlled by DA (digital generation of the control voltage). If to trust Wikipedia, the terminology it has DCO.

The point is if the pitch of the VCO is stabilized by e.g. the combination of a CPU and a DA converter. If yes, it's a DCO. Having a VCO with temperature compensation to get a more stable pitch is not the same while those could sound slightly different to vintage VCOs (or VCOs without temperature compensation) too.

Just having digital parts in the synth does not say anything about the oscillators.

As i mentioned earlier i had a Moog Slim Phatty with VCOs that needed a while to warm up to get a stable pitch I also mentioned it had an autotune feature. If i used teh autotune only shortly it's still VCOs, if i enable the autotune all the time (which was possible there) it is a kind of DCO.
BTW the Slim Phatty also had patch storage, MIDI and also USB MIDI but only few people would consider it being a digital synth.

I am also not sure how many recent analog synths, especially polyphonic ones, actually involve fully analog mod sources (e.g. enveloeps and LFOs). I guess those will not be many and using digital mod sources was alraedy quite usual in the 80s (for example the Roland Jupiter 6 seemed to use digital enveleopes while the Jupiter 8 had analog ones and U-He Diva seems to include emulations of both types of envelopes).

[IncarnateX]

I don't see anyone who is sure, that the synth will have motorized faders. There is only a lot of discussion

I wrote "close to sure" referring to their insightful arguments. At least one was serious enough about it to actually ask Uli

But I think it is not very probable, that this synth will have them.

No shit.

Mate, I see that this is your very first post despite you have registered in 2005. You must think my post is important enough to grant me this honor. If it happens that I have just offended you or friends at Gearslutz let me assure you that no offence is meant.

Now do you happen to know from where they get their weed? I am much more interested in this than anything else.

[Numanoid]

DeepMind 12 is a nice name for it

Hope the inbuilt LED screen will survive for a while, Behringer build quality is maybe not the best

[AnX]

Motorized faders? $$$$$$

[Numanoid]

A synth for lazy tweakers

[IncarnateX]

Seems there will be no more teasers. Here is a full interview and in debth info....in German though. Fortunately I live just north of this wonderful country and can manage with my rusty German. Otherwise ask your favorite German poster or use Google translate:

https://www.amazona.de/preview-intervie ... nthesizer/

[rod_zero]

The video is in English

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=caMT4BYFCCk

[Numanoid]

So this is the final frontier

Looks like a midi controller for TAL-U-NO-LX

[chk071]

Regarding the price, the article says that the writer, Mr. Tyrell, writes his "feeling" tells him that the synth will be in the 1.000 - 1.500 € price range. He also writes that, if a synth is priced too low, in his example 500 €, it will rather be seen as a toy than a serious instrument, and that it could rather hurt than help sales. Which already tells me that Uli Behringer, or anyone else involved in the synths production told him what the price will be. I think it will rather be like 1.300 €, according to what has been said in the article (the writer has been invited by Behringer in 2015, and met some of the technical people behind the synth, so he seems to be quite informed).

@ video & pics: The synth looks really nice. Good work on that design.

[AnX]

Those vol and porta knobs dont fit the rest of the design. Look very out of place.